To Build a Home
by TheBookshelfDweller
Summary: "There is a buzz, somewhere deep in my foundations, as the cobwebs are unsettled – I have visitors, and what a curious pair, at that. I stir, softly, and greet them – who knows, this might come to something. [...] At times, there are people searching through me, making a mess. They find things, material possessions, but I never let them find the most important of things."


**Author's note: *Rises from the dead* Hello everyone! So, I hope you enjoy this little one-shot, which is the only thing real-life obligations (funny, that phrase, I actually consider fanfiction quite real, and as such not dissociated from my real life) allowed me to write. Although I'd much rather be working on my three-part series than on "real-life" stuff, I guess I'll have to settle for stealing time to write one-shots for the time being.**

**Anyway, characters and all are not mine, so consider them disclaimed. The title is from Cinematic Orchestra's song of the same name.**

**Enojy! :)**

* * *

_221B, Baker Street, London, W1_

I'm just a place.

* * *

I'm a building; a construction of bricks, adhesive materials and metal pipes. There is glass in my windows and wooden panels on my floors. There is dust upon my shelves and my counters. Boring dust, not eloquent one. I have an address. I'm but a space, dead and cold.

* * *

I'm a rendezvous point.

* * *

There's a spark – I might be waking up. I feel warmth, two spots of radiating heat moving within me. My door opens, creaking, and I feel a breeze pirouetting around my dormant interior. My door stretches in a yawn, and my eyes are opened as someone pulls back the blinds. There is a buzz, somewhere deep in my foundations, as the cobwebs are unsettled – I have visitors, and what a curious pair, at that. I stir, softly, and greet them – who knows, this might come to something.

* * *

I'm a home.

* * *

I am alive, with hollow bones of lead, and watery blood coursing through, no longer stale, no longer stagnant. I'm a creature with clay muscles, cement tendons, and cellulose skin in various patterns. I have a name.

Oh, if these walls could talk! I am a witness of life. Of many lives. My floors creek under sets of steps – excited and tired, manic and calm, alive, alive, alive – I know to whom they belong, each of them. My lovely tenants, my beating hearts. How unimaginable it seems now that any other hands should touch my walls. How wrong that would feel. Those hands would be too new, too clean.

I love their hands, and all they do. The ones which are always busy, sometimes gloved and sometimes bloody. He leaves marks, red and yellow, blood and spray paint, all over these walls of mine. I don't mind. It's my make-up. He is my impish one. Sometimes I worry for him; he is so reckless, so wild. He is beautiful and mesmerizing, he is my star, yet sometimes I worry for him. I worry, because all stars shine bright by burning themselves up. But not when _he _is with him, my other one. That's when I don't have to worry, because he feeds my star all that is needed to support that blinding shine.

I love their voices, and all they say. Such lovely words, at times, and at others, such harsh ones, too. Oh, but how I love listening to them, to their bickering and their fights, to their jokes and their streams of thoughts. Sometimes there are screams, and those I love less. In the middle of the night, those sleep-stealing yelps – I soak them up in my plaster body. It's usually my other one who screams. I hold him then, in my cold and dark embrace, because I'm the only one there. He is my grounded one, so much older. But not when he's with _him_, not when they are together – then he is younger, he is as old as he is supposed to be. They are each other's restorations.

Let's call them something, shall we? It will be easier to distinguish between them that way. After all, now that I have a name, it is only fair that they get theirs, too.

Impish and Grounded? No, absolutely not. Detective and Blogger? That's not all they are. Let's call them, then, by the names they call themselves. Somehow those fit them best. Sherlock and John? Yes. Sherlock and John.

I'm ageing with them, maturing and growing. They transform me. I get laughter lines and stretch marks, in form of scratched furniture and cracked walls. I love it, I'm alive. I'm their home.

* * *

I'm a sanctuary.

* * *

I am a safe haven in this endless field of war. I have an identity. I'm an improvised laboratory and the occasional music hall. I'm a reprieve. Whether it's in the morning, when they are seated across each other at their desks, typing away – one rapidly, other slowly – or in the evening, when the sofa becomes a place of cohabitation as they watch telly (well, John watches and Sherlock argues with it), it is a world of their own in here. I feel privileged for getting to see them like this – at ease, unveiled. I wonder if they know that they are a part of a whole, that they have found something rare, immensely valuable.

At times, there are people searching through me, making a mess. They find things, material possessions. Eyes, fingers, tea, toast. But I never let them find the most important of things. They never find those mute looks and heavy silences. They never find Sherlock's music, the one he never writes down, but composes as he plays. Sherlock's transient compositions, played only once, and then never again. I keep them all. They never find the way John recites his Hippocratic Oath under his breath on nights when they come back covered in blood – whose exactly, I never know. John's little scientific prayer to the deity of his profession, of all things good and true. They never find it, but I can recite it word for word.

They never find the way Sherlock leans over John's shoulder to read (and usually object to) John's blog entries. They don't find those nights when Sherlock's body gives out, and he falls asleep leaning against John, as they watch telly on the sofa. They never find the way John doesn't mind when this happens.

I know how to keep secrets, things of value, so they never find any of that.

They never find that one kiss.

Maybe that's because there isn't one to be found, not here anyway. Still, I like to think there might be one, somewhere beyond my reach, outside my walls, where it's not my secret to keep (although I would have, I'm good like that). Maybe it's the dirty bricks of an alley that get to keep that one. Maybe that's why they never find the kiss in here. Maybe it's because it's hidden so well they wouldn't know where to start looking. Maybe it's because it's hidden in time, instead of space, the one place no one can reach – future has no lock to be broken and no windows to be shattered.

Either way, they never find it.

(And neither do I)

* * *

I'm a tomb.

* * *

There are ghosts among my walls, echoing. One of my hearts is gone, and the other cannot beat here all alone. I am just a reminder, cruel and unkind. He feels trapped inside of me, like the present tense trapped in a box of memories. There are traces all over me – I wear scars and blemishes – traces of that life that used to reside between my walls. That's alright, scars are unfeeling, just stains.

Oh, my impish one, what have you done? My brightly shining star, you've burnt up, not only yourself, but him, too. Let's take away their names, shall we? After all, one is now on a tombstone, engraved and mute, and the other sounds hollow when said by itself. No names are left, not theirs and not mine. I don't have a name - I have an epitaph.

* * *

I'm just a place.

_221B, Baker Street, London, W1_

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**Thank you for reading! :)****  
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